Vestiges
by H.T.Marie
Summary: Dean's got a whole new body. It doesn't fit as well as the old one. And it's not doing so well. Sick!Dean, semi-clueless!Sam. Case fic with a lot of subplot, because that's how I roll. Season 4 Winchesters, so there be awkwardness and angst.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **Okay, I promise to stop spamming you after this one. LOL. Basically, I signed up to write 1200 words a day as part of an LJ challenge. I had intended only to write original fic, but when you've only got an hour or so before work and are faced with a blank page, other stuff starts to come out. And since my brain is still mostly infected with Winchesteritis, a lot of what comes out is fanfic. It's now been two months since I started this challenge, and a lot of fic has accumulated, some of it finished, some of it not. This fic is _not _finished. It's a WIP, and to be honest, I'm not sure this is the right audience for it. I mentioned earlier that writing Season 4 Winchesters is less fun than groping maggoty meat, and this is the fic that made me say it.

I like it. I love it. I think it's a good representation of what their relationship is like at this stage, but I don't think it's what people want to read. So, rather than have it hanging around on my hard drive taunting me, I figured I'd throw it up here (no pun intended). I still have two months of this challenge left, so if you want me to continue, I will, if not, I am sure plenty of other ideas will sprout up soon enough. But you have to ask real nice, cuz this one has been HARD to write. Also, this has a case file in it somewhere. It's not mentioned at all in this first chapter, and I'm not sure how much it will be the focus. I tend to write more plot than subplot. You've been warned.

**Warnings:** Language, bodily functions, probably innuendo of the calibre we get in any episode.

**Summary:** Dean's got a whole new body. It doesn't quite fit like the old one. And it's not doing so well. Set in Season 4, so probably will spoil for it, but so far it doesn't. I would say, it's definitely Pre-Halloween. Sort of inspired by Dean's re-hymenation, lol, but not about that.

**Disclaimer:** Just for fun. No defamation, infringement, or ill will intended. No money being made.

**Vestiges**

**Chapter One**

Cold sweat slicks down his back and pools at the already saturated waistband of his boxer briefs. He drags a hand up the front of the porcelain tank and flushes, spitting one last time like that one final bit of poison will take with it the bitter that preceded it. Head cradled on one bicep, he blinks, slightly disgusted at the way his eyes still leak into the cuff of his t-shirt sleeve. Nothing like an acid wash to clean out all a guy's pores and tear ducts...he groans in his throat, sticky with mucous... not to mention his sinuses.

What ends up in the wad of toilet paper he blows into is bright yellow, and he wonders if maybe he forgot the whole, swallow, then inhale rule of basic respiration. Four months of not breathing might've just scrambled his wiring a little, makes him think he's doing that wrong, too. Breathing. Wrong. Could he be made of more fail? He's snorted soda out his nose a total of two times in his entire life, all two/three of them, and that was more pleasant than this.

"Welcome to earth," he grumbles. It's almost as difficult pulling himself up off the floor as it was to dig himself out of his own grave, and it's just plain fucked up how he knows that. Maybe there's a way to unknow it, but if there is, he's pretty sure it falls into the category of bad mojo. He's having enough trouble dealing with the good mojo.

He's presuming it's good, anyway. He wanted out of Hell. Now he's out of Hell. That's gotta be good, right?

So, why does he feel like shit?

Looks like it, too, if that dude in the mirror is any indication.

He can refer to his reflection in the third person. He's still not entirely convinced it's actually him. Yeah, yeah, he's convinced Bobby and Sam, and that Castiel dude doesn't seem the type to make little boo-boos on the caliber of mistaken identity. But they don't know. Haven't ever been to that place where every truth is fabricated from the lies you let yourself believe and then unwoven one little white strand at a time, pulled back slick and bloody until everything is just pain with your name on it.

Not a revenant. Not a shapeshifter. Not a demon. Not a zombie movie reject.

Long list of things he's not. That's all he really knows.

He doesn't know he's actually him. If he was himself, wouldn't his skin feel more like home and less like something he needs to shed. Or, you know, scrape off against the nearest tree, or brick wall, or, hell, he doesn't know... a loofah wrapped in sandpaper. Surely Sam has a loofah. No other way he keeps from getting a heat rash between all those new muscles he's managed to pack on while Dean was having his flayed off his bones.

"Urgghhh!" He scratches at the itchy bumps springing up along his jaw line, considers whether to hide them by putting off shaving or just shave and blame them on bad technique. There's no way the bumper crop on the insides of his elbows, spreading up the crease of his bicep is anything but a rash of some sort. Thank God... (yeah, God, you wanna make something of it...)

His inner self's still feeling a little backed into a corner by his outer self with its giant angel hand prints branded into it.

Anyway, thank God, or someone, for long-sleeved shirts.

His stomach cramps, a couple giant fists wrapped around his intestines and sliding in opposite directions, and he doubles over the sink. There's nothing left upstream or down at this point, which doesn't stop his gag reflex kicking in around the anti-peristaltic wave. Just a good old kick in the stomach to help him clear his throat. Yellow phlegm down the sink, chased away by tap water a few shades lighter than rust and whatever his body's squeezing out of his pores by the gallon. It's a toss up as to which is the lesser evil, brown water or rank sweat, but the tepid water feels better on his skin, big handfuls of it splashing over his forehead, clinging in his eyelashes and dripping off his nose and lips.

He puts off meeting his own gaze for as long as possible. There's just something about the reflection of a reflection...

He remembers Dad stashing him and Sam in a changing room at a department store one time. Who knows why. They were already past the age when the endless, why, why, why questions kids inevitably ask garnished fairy tale answers like, Santa Claus, or elves, or pixie dust, and, instead, just earned him a warning glare, and, if he was lucky, "Because I said so, Dean." Dad put them in there, told them not to make a sound or come out for anyone, and then disappeared to do whatever Dad did. Dean guesses there was fire involved if the sprinklers coming on awhile later is any clue.

Sam wasn't the easiest kid to entertain or keep quiet back then. Kinda like now. Dean remembers nearly going out of his mind trying to decide if he could get away with just gagging the kid and sitting on him, when the door moved a fraction of an inch, shifting the angle of light so their reflections bounced around in an endless pinwheeling spiral of smaller and smaller, smaller to the point of being swallowed whole and yet... whole. Reflections of reflections of reflections.

Dad came back to find Dean shaking in the corner, Sam held tight in his lap in white-knuckled determination.

It kinda still has that effect on him, makes him want to latch onto what's real and shut his eyes to everything else.

Years later and a trip to Hell and back, there's still no other phenomenon that can seize Dean's chest faster than the reflection of a reflection. The way positive and negative, right and left lose their identities. The way his eyes look into himself and out, knowing there's nothing in between but air and memory, consciousness and loss. It's like being dropped into the vacuum of space where everything you keep inside comes out. For Dean, that's a lot.

Really shouldn't be that hard to look himself in the eye, but it is. Not just since Hell, either. Pretty much always. Just now, with Hell to paint the back of the mirror, there's a little more darkness. Or just a little less light.

In his last life, he was a bit of underexposed film that just didn't see the light. In this one, the light's everywhere, but the lead casing is too thick to let it in.

On the one hand shiny and new, and on the other... so not.

Yeah, he's the biggest mixed metaphor ever. He doesn't even make sense to himself.

"Ah!" His hand massages over the trembling muscles of his stomach. He understands pain. The very basest things are crystal clear.

Pain. Hunger. Itch. Breath. Fear.

Sam.

He peeks out the bathroom door, eyes scanning the dimly lit room and Sam's long body stretched out on his bed, still deep asleep.

Relief.

At least none of Dean's bodily functions, or malfunctions as they may be, are interfering with Sam's.

Quick shower and a shave, and who knows, maybe Dean's skin will tighten back up again, start to feel like he belongs inside it.

He hopes so. Because now? This is all feeling like a giant, cosmic joke.

XX

He emerges from the bathroom feeling a lot better than when he went in, like a dirty sponge wrung out in a lightning storm and dried full of ozone and fresh air.

Heh. Heheh. The Beavis in his head thinks he's been using too much of Sam's coconutty shampoo.

Scratch the whole sponge and ozone thing. He feels like a zit that's freshly popped. Oh yeah. That's how he spells relief.

Well, there's another way, but that's not as satisfying as it used to be now that all his callouses are gone. His hands don't even fit right anymore.

At any rate, he feels good enough that finding Sam freshly dressed and dangling the keys doesn't make him want to puke. He's even a little hungry.

"Don't you need to shower first?"

"I did. Last night, before bed." Sam tosses him the keys.

"When was that? I don't remember."

"It was after..." Something flickers over Sam's features. Something new that Dean hasn't learned yet, and he isn't up for New!Sammy 101 before breakfast. At least one of them seems to have gotten the whole new life thing worked out. "...while you were... Man, you were really out of it," Sam snickers.

Dean doesn't get the joke, and from the wide-eyed arch of Sam's forehead, he doesn't either. It might've been a nervous laugh. Neither one's willing to push the subject.

Awkward.

They didn't used to do awkward quite so well.

That's a paradox or something, isn't it? An oxymoron maybe. Definitely one of those things Dean's always just considered a perk of being Winchester. In his case, Dean fucking Winchester, big goddamned hero... who's shorter than his little brother. Yup.

"You hungry?" He already knows the answer. That's why he asks.

"Starved," Sam says. Then the little giant bastard opens the door for him. Like he's a girl. Or someone who needs his back watched.

There's that little lagging ripple again, the bit of extra room that makes things jumble around and knock together.

Damned loose skin.

XX

Dean looks up from under his furrowed brow, fork in hand as the waitress sets down a napkin and then the condensation soaked glass.

"Milk?" He's sure he didn't order that.

"Mmm, it does a body good." Sam's expression is somewhere between amused and hopeful.

"Oh, it does, does it?"

"Well, sure...everybody knows that." He knows that's the exact wrong response, evidenced by the sudden, ravenous consumption of half his stack of pancakes without coming up for air or to look Dean in the eye. Judging by the way his Adam's apple works around the last bite, he probably wishes he'd ordered the milk for himself.

"And _everybody_ has a problem with my body now?"

"Dean, that's not what I meant."

"Do _you_?" The gesture he makes with his fork is supposed to be curiosity, but Sam blinks a little like he fears for his eyes. Their timing couldn't be more off. "I mean, you can tell me, Sammy. Something about my body not doing it for you? Cuz, you know," and he smirks, because that's what he does before he says this next line, what he's always done, even if it feels sloppy on his face, "I've never had any complaints." Except his own.

Even a sloppy smirk is enough, apparently, because Sam laughs, and the tension melts like butter in a hot skillet with a hiss and slow slide into oblivion.

"Four words, Dean." Sam leans across the table, his fear of Dean's fork suddenly assuaged. "When Harry Met Sally."

"Yeah, well..." a bit of sausage that must've been trapped between his cheek and his jaw goes down his throat with the next inhale, making his eyes water and burn. The coffee cup he keeps next to his right hand slides across the table out of reach, Sam's hand over the top and a cocky grin wrinkling his chin. Dean swallows, tries to work the lump past his trachea, afraid to take a breath. Nothing happens, except the morsel seems to expand into what feels like an entire sausage. He swallows again, and then twice more, his eyes watering. Then, because somewhere in his warped psyche it's still possible to save face, he grins his biggest and dorkiest grin and downs half the glass of milk like he'd been intending to do so the entire time. "Milk... Mmmm." He drains all but the last swallow. "Happy now?"

Sam raises his eyebrows and ducks away, scratching the back of his neck as he hands Dean a spoon.

"Dude. What?"

Dean turns the spoon over, one hand poised to straighten his hair, and is met with the funhouse caricature of his own face complete with the biggest milk mustache he's ever seen. With a shrug, he replies, "Why buy the cow? Manipulative little brothers are free." The table behind them is empty but set for two, and since his own napkin's being used as a milk coaster, he steals the one wrapped around the silverware from the vacant place setting. He doesn't even unroll it, just wipes it over his mustache and sets it back in place.

They used to call that 'blowing kisses, Winchester style.'

It's an old joke, something they used to do with the whipped cream that came on mugs of hot cocoa. Dean doesn't remember the last time he had hot cocoa. Doesn't remember the last time he drank milk, either, for that matter. Doesn't remember ever actually blowing kisses.

"Ya think I'll grow up to be big and strong like you now, Sam?"

"In your dreams, Rickets."

"Right, make fun of the dude with the skeletal deformities. Just see if I haul your ass into the Big and Tall store next time you split the back out of your jeans. Admit it, you spend all your stakeout time doing isometric butt clenches, don't you. I can totally tell."

"Tell me you're not checking out my ass."

"Don't have to. It's imprinted on the driver's seat of the car. I got a friggin' wedgie every time I get out now. God help me, Sam, if I have to get one of those beaded seat covers..."

Sam's half-chewed hash browns end up wadded in the side of his mouth, pooching out one of his dimples as he fights to keep from spitting it all over the table. "Dude, I'm trying to eat."

"No one's stopping you."

"Drink your milk."

"Yes, mom."

He drinks his milk, and he doesn't wipe off the mustache. He sorta hopes it looks like clown makeup.

XX

When he throws up his breakfast a few hours later, Sam's thankfully gone to the library for research.

It's just an itch at first. Tingling in his lips and under his jaw. He's standing in front of the sink rifling through their bag in search of whatever creams they have for itch of unknown origin. He doesn't want to use the antibiotic stuff, because he never knows when they'll need it. Stuff's not cheap. Sometimes cheap toothpaste takes the bite out enough to let him stop scratching, but all they have is the thick, white stuff. Calamine lotion would be less conspicuous. He's got one hand in the duffel bag and one scratching absently under his neck, when his throat closes.

It's just for a second, a constriction so tight he can feel it in his chest. His hands fly to the edges of the sink, various toiletries scattering at his feet, and he curls in on himself, focusing on just breathing through the pain, tiny sips of air. It passes, probably doesn't last half a minute, even, but it leaves him shaking and drenched in cold sweat. His eyes flutter shut, as he drops to the floor, liquid tracing the pained lines of his forehead and congealing in the middle, falling in fat drops to the toilet where he can hear the plunk, plink, plunk without looking.

He waits for it to ease up, but it doesn't, his mouth watering faster than he can swallow. Finally, he gives in and leans forward, coughs once before he heaves up his breakfast.

He flushes without opening his eyes. He already knows what eggs and sausage look like. He's been seeing them a lot lately.

By the time the room door opens and Sam calls for him, Dean's washed, teeth freshly brushed, and he strolls out of the bathroom like he's been bathing in the Irish Springs themselves.

"Shower in the middle of the day?" Sam asks. "I'm surprised you're not playing Enya and burning scented candles."

"Couldn't, you keep your private stash locked." He's too busy trying not to scratch to notice if Sam even laughs. "I don't know the combination."

He's not sure he's talking about Sam's stash anymore.

TBC

**A/N:** So, if you found the humor flat and the relationship strained, it was supposed to be. If that bothers you too much to keep reading, say so. If you think it's worth continuing, say that, too. I don' t beg for reviews anymore, but my muse does get lazy if she thinks no one's reading. Your loss, not mine. LOL. I will be writing tomorrow regardless of whether it's this story. So, be honest. MWAH! You're all amazing.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **Complete disclaimer and warnings at Chapter One. Read them.

**A/N:** I'm not really happy with this, but I don't want y'all to have to wait through the weekend. Besides, this morning I tried to do a little video post so people would know me when they say me at the convention this weekend, and I've now come to the conclusion that nothing I do will ever turn out right. Shut up. You didn't see the vid. Why did no one tell me I have no social skills whatsoever, that I'm pasty (I work nights and sleep all day), none of my clothes fit, and my eyes roll like a freaky doll? Why, I ask you?!! So, um, there's no vid. If you want to find me, I'll be in H18. I have long blonde hair past my hips, kinda wavy, and big dimples. None of my clothes will fit right, and I'll make you squirm. I swear. This is true. I fidget, like whoa. The vid made ME squirm, LOL.

**A/N:** I made some references to the Holocaust in here. They're not a huge part of the story, but if that bothers you, don't read. It's probably also historically inaccurate. *shrug*

**Vestiges**

**Chapter Two**

XX--That evening

"Dean, wake up. It's time to go."

"What?" The room's darker than he remembers, quieter, too. Last he remembers, they were squinting at old newspaper scans that shouldn't be smudged at this resolution but somehow were. And then the smudges started to bleed into the rest of the room, tiny bursts of light fizzing behind his eyelids as he pressed his fingers over them.

He rolls to his side, one arm dangling off the bed, the other scrubbing the sleep from his tear ducts. "Go where?" Seems like a question he should know the answer to, but if he made plans before passing out in the middle of the afternoon, they're swallowed in the spun silk wadded up over the viewfinder in his brain.

"Uh, our job? Night security guards at the storage lot? See if we can't find a valuable piece of history and torch it?" He pauses, giving Dean an incredulous look. "Any of this ringing a bell?"

"Ohhh, yeah, sure, our cover, security guards, haunted trunk," Dean scratches the back of his head, starts to lever himself up, which feel like trying to roll up a hill steep enough to ski down. "Gotcha."

"Actually, it's a hope chest," Sam says with a cynical tilt to his mouth. "_Hope_ chest," he repeats like the irony's too much even for him.

Sam moves with a fluid cat-like posture as though he's been tiptoeing around the room for hours. The security guard dress slacks he's wearing don't even rustle as he puts on his shoes. He laces up one shoe and reaches for the other, lets the first drop to the ground with a muted thud. As he does, he gets a far-off look in his eye, pauses, the tongue of his shoe gaping over the toe of a sock that looks like it'll come out of the next wash holier than it went in It's an old joke between them that they wash their clothes in Holy water, homemade armor plating. Probably started with Dad calling their torn socks 'church wear.' Though, from the expression on Sam's face at the moment, Dean guesses he's not taking a happy stroll down memory lane. "Can you imagine?" he asks.

Dean's throat is thick and gravelly. "Imagine what?" Clearing it doesn't make the words come out any easier.

"Can you imagine how Josef must've felt, facing the gas chamber knowing there was no one else that knew where he'd left his sister? Imagine him knowing right where she was and not being able to save her." It's not like Sam to get quite this worked up over a case, but he's either having the same throat problems as Dean, or he's swallowing something back that's threatening to choke him. He's been doing that a lot. Dean kinda misses the way everything used to just hang out on his shirt sleeve.

He can't really blame Sam for getting emotional this time. The details of the case, as they start to filter into focus, are pretty horrifying. It's always hard when there are kids involved. "Imagine how Anya felt all curled up in that trunk as the Gestapo dragged off her entire family, not knowing if anyone would ever come for her. All those days she spent locked in there waiting for someone to let her out..." He darts his eyes up at Sam, then averts them to his own holy socks. "Probably screaming for her brother."

The silence that follows is pointed and directed at the top of Dean's head until he lifts it, hairline, eyebrows, lashes, then eyes.

Their gazes lock across the span between the two beds, both glistening with something that looks like apology before Sam shakes it off and finishes with his shoe. "Anyway, I can't believe she kept that trunk, brought it all the way across the ocean."

"I'd have never been able to open it again." Dean doesn't know if he's confessing too much, but it's the truth, and he's still in his post-sleep haze, doesn't care if it says something about himself he's not willing to define.

"Well she said she was hoping she'd find Josef again, that she could show it to him and tell him how she made it out alive because of him, and then they could burn it together, put the past behind them." Finished with dressing, Sam starts to load the duffel with their flashlights and extra salt cartridges just in case their ghost mistakes them for the Gestapo like the last three security guards.

"Guess Josef found her, instead. I wonder why she never noticed there was anything attached to that thing when it was in her house."

Sam shrugs. "Maybe while she had the chest in her possession, his spirit was at rest, like they were together, you know. I guess her death and the family stashing it away in storage just stirred up a lot of old memories."

"Friggin' ghosts have lousy timing," Dean huffs, finally rolling to his feet, glad he'd already half-dressed before he took his unplanned nap. "Dude sleeps through eighty-odd years of candy apple life, marriage, house, half a dozen kids, grand kids, great-grand kids, the whole American dream, and then he wakes up when it's over and wants revenge."

"Yeah, should've picked up a phone once in awhile, I guess," Sam says with some sort of strange squirm to his posture that Dean's only ever felt crawling over his own skin. It doesn't suit Sam.

His joints pop and creak when he stands, testament to how long he's been crashed out. "Shit, why'd you let me sleep so long?" he asks, massaging at his neck, which is no small feat with even his hands tightened into knots.

Sam huffs. "You say that like I could've got you up with anything less than a stick of dynamite. You were really dead to the..." His throat cuts off the rest of the sentence before his eyes flicker in realization of what he's saying, and he drops his gaze to the ever important task of sliding on the uniform jacket. "You looked like you needed it. Just crashed out without any kind of warning. I think you might've been in the middle of a sentence." He looks up again, having regained his composure. "You've been doing that a lot lately. You sure you're all right?"

"Me? Yeah, sure, why wouldn't I be?"

A dimple forms in Sam's bottom lip where he must be biting it, a sure sign he's about to say nothing no matter how strongly he has something to say. "I don't know. I guess I just worry too much."

"Well don't." They've been through all this, went through it before the deal came due, and Dean's not about to go through it again.

It's done, over.

In the past.

Which is the worst possible kind of reassurance when they're on a ghost hunt, but whatever.

"Aye, aye, Captain," Sam snorts. "You ready?"

Dean points to the door, chest up, shoulders back. "Make it so, Number One."

"You're such a geek."

"That's Captain Geek to you."

Sam does a double take of his uniform, seems satisfied when he straightens up. Catching Dean's questioning eyebrow quirk, he says, "Just making sure I didn't put on a red shirt by mistake."

"Wrong Star Trek, dumbass," Dean says with a shake of his head. He cuffs Sam upside the head for good measure. "Now let's go, Warp One."

"Wuss."

"Fine. Warp Five."

"I'm givin' her all she's got, Cap'n."

Dean doesn't bother to correct Sam on his second slip. He just files it away for future reference. It'll probably get him a bye the next time Sam wants to compare notes on something Dean knows nothing about.

Like, say, the Civil War.

Brother against brother. Now that's some deep shit Dean doesn't want anything to do with.

--

Forty-five minutes later, they've had the grand tour which consisted of showing them the fire exits, the bathroom, the breakroom, and the designated smoking area, then planting them in front of a bank of monitors. Which is good, you know, if they want to catch a potential burglar, but since they're planning on doing a little hamburgling of their own, is pretty impractical. They get the feeling the day guard has no interest in staying into the night. They watch him hit the parking lot, walking like he's got firecrackers in his socks, hop into his car, and drive away before getting down to business.

With pursed lips, Dean outlines the path of destruction. "First guard got pinned under the cargo elevator on the dock. Second one reported electrical outages and faulty reception on the security cameras in this block before he 'accidentally' ingested enough rat poison to kill an elephant, all without leaving his station, right..." he swings his flashlight toward the cubicle in the corner of the warehouse, "over there." He regrets turning so quickly when the room keeps on going several seconds after he stops, flashlight wavering.

The place is massive. This is going to be a long night.

It flies out of the darkness, a glint of light that splooshes into his chest before he can deflect it. He catches it mostly by reflex, his defensive action just slow enough to snag it on the rebound as it rolls down the front of his jacket. There's no way to make it look graceful, so Dean's sure he'll look up and find Sam chuckling at him, keeping score in the air for having caught him off guard.

Sam's watching him, yes, but there's nothing amused or gloating in his expression, nothing but blank objectivity sparsely painted over glaring concern.

It's the same kind of test Dean used to give Sam, born of a hundred, 'think fasts' and 'ha, gotchas', a test of physical and emotional reflex, preparedness for the task at hand.

A test Dean just failed miserably.

Sam doesn't even take his spoils, no two-for-flinching shoulder slugs, or slimy finger to ear, no Three Stooges antics of any sort. He's all slow, unwavering gaze, deceptively still like a coiled snake when he says, "You need me to open that for you?"

Dean can't tell whether it's a jab or a serious question, or he _can_ tell and it falls into the part of his brain that looks the other way. He doesn't say no, but makes a show of opening the bottle of water with a sharp twist, ignoring the tingling in his fingers. It's funny, he hasn't consciously _not_ noticed the tingling before. So far, he's been able to just dismiss it as part of having a new body.

The last time he had a new body, he was too young to appreciate it. He doesn't remember what it feels like.

Sam doesn't seem assuaged by Dean's deft removal of the cap, locks a knowing gaze on the little bit of water that dribbles out the corner of Dean's mouth when he tries to drink it too quickly.

So, maybe his lips are a little tingly, too.

Dean hates that Sam watches so closely. He wonders when he stopped being the big brother, the strong one, the constant in the equation, and became the variable. He feels like he and Sam are on opposite sides of the equals sign, inverse functions of each other, not the like terms they used to be.

Maybe he's on the wrong side of the mirror after all.

With a smirk, Dean eyes the bottle in his hand. "Funny, I didn't see a concession stand. Next time you swing by that way, oh, I dunno, on your way to actually hunting this ghost, I'd like some cotton candy and a caramel apple... with nuts." The mention of nuts reminds him of the tightness in his throat, and he clears it with a cough.

Sam turns, makes a show of shining the beam of his flashlight over the facility map on the wall, finger tracing around the outlines of the twenty or so structures strewn over the lot. "Vending machine," he says absently. "In the break room. And you should thank me. You sound like an old man with all that coughing and wheezing. Might as well have a sign on your back that says, 'easy prey.'"

"Aw, c'mon, man. Everything's drawn to me, anyway. I'm just that pretty."

Sam laughs. Sort of. Either that or his hair's in his face and he just blows it out of the way. It's hard to tell from where Dean's standing. "We don't want it to be drawn to anything. The ghost is attached to an object, remember? We just want to find the chest and torch it. Any luck, we won't even see Josef."

Dean scoffs. "See, now, that would just be anticlimactic. You know me. All about the... climax," he says with a waggle of his eyebrows.

Even with his back turned, Dean can tell Sam's rolling his eyes. "Ah! Here it is. Storage locker 613, Building 12," he sighs, shoulders slumping. "Other side of the lot."

Dean steps in closer, eyeing the map over Sam's shoulder. "That far, huh?"

"That gonna be a problem?" Sam asks, and Dean hates that there's no sarcasm in his voice.

"No," he clears his throat, "no, it's just..." he tugs his uniform blazer straight over his chest so his tin badge lands right over his heart. "I don't think they pay me enough. Remind me to ask for a raise."

This time Sam's laugh is real. He ducks his head into his chest, his hand fishing around in his pocket. "You're such a whiny bitch," he says. "Lucky for you," he raises a set of keys in the air, "the salary sucks, but there's plenty of perks."

"What?" Dean asks, and maybe his heart beats faster in anticipation. He knows he's got a big stupid grin on his face like he's just made it to the catwalk and can finally reach the stripper's G-string. "Golf cart? It's a golf cart, isn't it? We get golf carts, right?" He's rubbing his hands together, already imagining a night of doing donuts in the parking lot, taking corners fast just to see if Sam flies out the other side. This is better than the time they investigated the haunted bumper cars. "C'mon tell me we get golf carts."

"Better," Sam grins.

Dean frown, feels his lips pucker together. "Better? Dude, what could be better than golf carts?"

This time, Sam's eyebrows waggle.

--

"Duuuude." Dean's well aware he sounds awestruck. He's not even a little ashamed. "These are way better than golf carts."

Sam's not as impressed. "Easy for you to say," he grumbles. "You got the cool one. I got the friggin' HoverRound."

Dean revs the engine on his minibike, guns it with the front brake engaged just to feel the back end jump. He might be a little giggly at this point. His whole body thrums with anticipation, enough to override the tingle that's been spreading down his limbs, the latent bit of nausea still twisting in his gut. "You don't want this one, Sam. She's too spicy for ya. You're way better off with your vanilla scooter there. You do know what to do with her right? I mean, do we need to have the talk?"

"The talk?" Sam turns the key, appalled at the near silent electric hum of his new transportation.

"You know," Dean smirks. "Tab A, Slot B, where you gotta stroke to get just the right... thrust." He bites his lip, eyelashes drooping to half-mast. "Mmmm-mmmm. Cuz let me tell ya, Sam, once you get her purring, you'll be able to open her up, get the maximum torgue. Best ride of your life, I promise."

"Ugh, I think I need a shower now."

"Hot and bothered?" He guns his engine a couple more times.

"Dirty and slimy."

"Ah, well, that works, too." He circles his arm over head, makes a whip-cracking motion with his elbow and shoulder. "Move 'em on! Head 'em UP!"

"Dean, you're no Clint Eastwood."

"Yates," Dean says with a wink, "Rowdy Yates. Cattle boss. Now let's get this show on the road before I rope, throw, and brand your ass."

"You sure have an obsession with my ass."

"Not as much as I have with mine." He looks over his shoulder and down at the back pockets of his jeans where they meet the seat of the bike. "Now that's what I'm talkin' bout." He gives Sam a thumbs up and releases the brake, zipping off across the compound.

--

It's not really all that far from one end of the compound to the other, and to be fair, Sam's "scooter" (air quotes for wussiness) is probably capable of about forty miles per hour. The squirrels should be able to run around the wheel fast enough to get across the compound in just a couple of minutes.

But what would be the fun in that?

Dean takes the scenic route. It's not every day they get to play with toys they don't have to make or steal themselves. And laughter's supposed to be the best medicine. A little fun is the only thing he can swallow and keep down at the moment. Sam wants him to take care of himself, right?

The compound is laid out in long rows of buildings, driveways criss-crossing between them for easy loading and unloading. In the time it takes Sam to cram his ten foot legs up to his chest and get his feet on the pegs, Dean's circled around him and between the buidings on both sides, cutting in front of Sam just as the scooter gets straightened out and starts to pick up speed, so Sam has to swerve, brake, put his feet on the ground, and start all over again.

On about the third pass, Dean catches a grumble of something that sounds like, "sophomoric," knows the curses will lose a syllable every time he passes. He's tempted to see which one syllable word Sam pulls out of his SAT acing vocabulary, but the buzzing of his engine and the shocks vibrating up his arms make it harder and harder to keep his own bike from wobbling out of control.

He zips down an alley he's pretty sure is in the right direction, kicks in the clutch and cranks the throttle. Flying down the straightaway, he stands on the foot pegs, knees braced against the frame of the mini bike like a jockey on a racehorse, and leans out over the handlebars. He looks under the crook of his arm to see if Sam's anywhere in sight, a "woohoo! Look at me go!" just itching on his tongue.

Sam's still on the other side of this row of buildings, the beam of his headlight meandering back and forth so the shadows tilt hither and yon, and Dean's more chuckling to himself than gloating when he looks back to the path in front of him... just in time to see an air conditioning unit materialize out of a cloud of creeping fog directly ahead.

"Oh, shit!" Dean reaches for the clutch, realizing too late his thumb (and the rest of his fingers for that matter) is tingling with more than just the vibration from the engine, nothing but pins and needles to work with, and he can't be certain he's still gripping the handlebar, let alone find the clutch. Doing the only thing he can in that situation, he drops the throttle, feels the engine sputter and die, then lays the bike down.

He's lucky. The air conditioner can't drain onto black top, so there's deep pea gravel laid all around it. What doesn't spray against the unit like stony hail offers slightly more cushion than the parking lot would have. He hits the ground hard enough for the breath to knock out of him with a whump, skids through the gravel for several yards before stopping.

Having the wind knocked out of him shouldn't really be an issue, considering the number of times he's collided with inanimate objects over the course of his... career. So, Dean's already scrambling himself into a sitting position, more worried about Sam finding him like this than how he got like this in the first place, when he realizes he's having a hell of a time trying to knock the breath back in.

It just flat refuses.

His chest constricts like he's got a hose clamp strapped around him, someone with a screwdriver tightening it notch by notch. Pain radiates out from behind his sternum, punishing him for every tiny sip of air that does manage to squeak by, warning him not to try again, like he can just stop breathing on command. He tries to press a hand over it, massage it out like a charley horse, but his hand's numb, fingers fat and useless, tingling down his arm.

His vision's already starting to cloud over when he discovers the fog around him has a face. And it's not the face of a boy who died in a Nazi death camp. He doesn't recognize her, hasn't ever seen a picture of her so young, but he can guess her identity. "A-anya?" he gasps. She squints, five-year-old face menacing between her dark braids, stretches out a finger the way a toddler would when asked to "show me the puppy, your ears, your nose," but her touch is ice cold.

He huffs one clouded breath into the air between them before he can't see anything at all.

TBC

A/N: Well, now, that's about all I have of this story so far. I just started it a couple weeks ago, right after Yellow Fever, I think. I'm uncertain whether the case aspect of it should take center stage or whether Dean wakes up to find Sam's dispatched of the ghost and just have the mystery illness to deal with. Any votes?

A/N2: I probably spelled the names Anya and Josef wrong. I spelled Josef with an f instead of 'ph' because I figured the ph was probably more the English version of the name, but there's probably a 'y' or something in there. I just wanted the named to look how they sound so people wouldn't spend too much time stumbling over them in the text. On the show, we'd only hear them in the dialogue. Sometimes, I envy show. I'm pretty sure Anya probably has a 'j' in it, too. Please, do not be correcting my bad non-English grammar. Now, the English you can criticize all you want, though I'll probably chalk it up to stylistic choice.


End file.
